


Take Care

by fallingnights



Series: He's My Husband [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguments, Fluff and Angst, Iron Husbands, M/M, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 23:19:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18822811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingnights/pseuds/fallingnights
Summary: Tony hasn't slept for fifty hours and Rhodey thinks the best course is to take a vacation; they don't always seem to see eye to eye.





	Take Care

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Friends! I hope you enjoy this. I revel in comments so I'd love to hear from you guys. :D

“Tony!” A voice poked through the screaming music in the lab, and Tony could tell someone was banging on the glass of the lab. Tony didn’t look up, choosing not to acknowledge the source of the disturbance as he tried to reconnect the wires for the 15th damn time. The voice and pounding didn’t let up as he tried to ignore them. He had half a mind to just turn the music and put the lab on lockout but he was an adult and professional, so he was just going to continue ignoring them. Then the voices got louder and the banging got more persistent and it was distracting him. 

“Fuck!” He screamed, his hand slipping and touching the exposed wire. Tony yanked his hand away from the wire with a string of curses. “Jarvis, tell whoever is at my door that unless someone is dying or there is another Alien Invasion is occurring, they need to go away.” Tony had shit to do and did not need distractions. The blaring music paused and Jarvis’ voice came over the speaker. 

“Sir, Colonel Rhodes,” Huh, when did he get here? “is currently at the door. I don’t think it would be good for you to turn him away.” Damnit, Jarvis always was the reasonable one. He let out a long dramatic sigh. 

“Fine, Jesus. Open the gates, J.” The glass doors slide open with a whirl and Tony turned back to the wiring. 

“You’re going to go deaf listening to your music that loud,” Rhodey called, walking up next to him. 

“Hm? What did you say, Honeybear?”

“Ha, very funny.” Rhodey moved behind him, leaning his chin on Tony’s shoulder and wrapping Tony in a hug. Tony paused for a second, before dropping the wire and leaning slowly into Rhodey’s arms. “How long have you been down here, Tony?” Tony tensed up a little.

“A couple of hours?” It came out more like a question than an answer. “I don’t know.” The voice came out more defensive then he meant. “Why does it matter?”

“Jarvis, how long as he been down here?” 

“Forty-nine hours as of a few minutes ago.”

“Snitch,” Tony muttered, pressing his face into Rhodey’s arm. Rhodey let a sigh that instilled the fear of God in Tony; He could feel a lecture the coming on. 

“You’re gonna work yourself to death, Tones.” Rhodey sighed, pulling away to which he let out a noise of displeasure. Tony spun around in his chair to face him. 

“I just lost track of time. It's not a big deal, I promise.” 

“When’s the last time you ate?” Rhodey asked, folding his arms.  
“Uh, I don’t-.”

“36 hours, Sir.” Jarvis supplied. 

“When’s the last time you drank some water?” 

“Urm-” 

“Forty hours, Sir.” 

“Tony, Tony, Tony.” He chided. “I want to live a long, happy, healthy life with you. I can’t do that if you go and die in your forties because you can’t remember to eat or sleep or drink something that is not spiked coffee.” 

“I just really needed to finish this project.”

“Nope, I’m putting my foot down. I know for a fact that this has happened multiple times and I probably caught you on a good day. You and me, we are going on a vacation.” Tony scoffed. 

“Last time I went on vacation, I was dying and I was almost killed by a psychopath. Thinking about going on vacation actually makes me break out into hives.” Tony shivered and whispered in horror, “I can already feel the allergic reaction coming on.” 

“Hm, what a shame.” Rhodey shrugged his shoulder, giving absolutely no shits. “Guess you’ll die.” 

“Just tell me you don’t love me.” Tony sulked, sinking down into his chair. 

“Tony, dear." Rhodey smiled in a sickeningly sweet tone. "My love for you is the only reason I have grabbed you by the throat and dragged you on to the jet." 

"Hey, no need to get hasty." Tony's eyes widened as he rolled the chair a little bit away from Rhodey, bumping into the work table. “I’m just thinking maybe an out of country vacation isn’t the best.

“Oh?” Rhodey cocked an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

“There might be another world ending event. The Avengers might need help. Steve would kill me if I missed a mission.” 

“One: like you give a shit; you live to piss that man off and two: Rogers was actually the one to suggested we go on a vacation after he found you drinking an oil smoothie after not sleeping for four days.”

“Dum-E made it!” Tony defended, pointing over to his dumb robot child, who was knocking over another coffee mug. “It would hurt his feelings if I refused.”  
“You literally could have died.” Rhodey deadpanned. 

“I could have died a lot of times.” Tony immediately regretted saying that when Rhodey’s gaze sharpened. He tried to recover, “I mean, it just comes with the job description,” 

“It doesn’t!” Rhodey snapped. “I get it, I do. To protect the world, you might have to put your life on the line. I know. But this,” He waved a hand. “Is different than that. What you are doing is completely unnecessary and preventable. It’s like you don’t even care about yourself. You don’t care enough about yourself to at least try to not unnecessarily hurt yourself.” Tony blinked, for a moment. Where had all this come from? 

“Why do you even care?” Tony responded, getting to his feet. “I’ve been doing this shit since college. Why does it matter now?”

“Why-? Why does it matter? Because I love you, Tony because I’m sick of worrying about you all the time! I leave and I don’t know what I’m going to come back to. Am I going to find you hurt again because you didn’t take proper safety precautions? Am I going to find you passed out on the ground from exhaustion? I don’t know. I can’t trust you to take care of yourself!” 

“Rhodey, I-.” 

“I’m going upstairs.” His voice was flat as he turned his back on Tony and left the lab.  
*****  
Rhodey went for a walk. He was fuming and he needed a safe and healthy way to burn off his anger, so he went for a walk, a four-hour walk. It was dark by the time he got back and so he expected that Tony would still be in the lab where he left him. He certainly didn’t expect to find Tony standing at the elevator, shoving an envelope into his hands. 

Rhodey gave it a suspicious look as Tony turned his gaze to the ground, almost looking guilty. He gave Tony another look before pulling open the envelope and pulling out the small folded piece of paper. 

“A reservation for a rental house in Venice?” Rhodey asked and Tony didn't meet his gaze. 

“For our vacation. We leave tomorrow.” Tony rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.” He muttered. “I don’t mean to do all this, it just happens.” 

“I’m sorry for snapping at you, but everything I said still stands. I won’t accept your apology unless you’re going try to take better care of yourself. I don’t expect everything to change, just promise me you’ll try?” 

“I’ll-” Tony paused and took a breath. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all I can ask,” Rhodey smiled, pulling Tony into a hug.  
They stood like that for a moment, just holding each other before Tony broke the silence. “Now that we talked about our feelings, I still haven’t slept in 50 hours and I set up a movie in the living room. Are you going to join me?” Tony asked, pulling out of the hug and walking towards the living room. Rhodey followed with a small smile  
*****  
“You’re comfy,” Tony muttered, curling up further into Rhodey’s chest. I had barely been fifteen minutes and Tony was already half asleep. 

“I’m not a pillow.” Rhodey smiled, trying to pull a blanket over them without jostling Tony. 

“You’re the best pillow.” Rhodey laughed and pressed a kiss to the top Tony’s head, which was tucked under Rhodey’s chin. 

“I love you, Tones.” 

“Love you too,” Tony mumbled, unconsciously pulling the blanket towards him. “Love you lots.”


End file.
